Abstract

Laser-cooled trapped ions are among the most promising systems in which quantum information protocols and algorithms are being developed. The most diffused approach deals with a small number of cold ions confined in tiny and tight traps and manipulates discrete quantum variables. However approaches that manipulate continuous quantum variables are possible. In that case (that we address here) macroscopic ion clouds (10⁵ — 10⁶ ions) have to be trapped in quite large traps and have to be cooled-down to the Coulomb crystal state [1]. In such traps the collective behavior of the cloud affects the ions motion and therefore the cooling dynamics. We studied these effects experimentally with the technique of the resonant excitation of the cloud and numerically with a leapfrog based many-body algorithm [2].

© 2007 IEEE